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Well, I've finally had a few days to mess around with the RedShift engine, and while it isn't the 'wonder renderer' I was dreaming of (at least not yet), it is still very good...I know I need to use it more than 3-4 days to get more out of it, Nerv's renders are evidence of this.

The nodal system stumped me at first. There's bit of a learning curve and I was at a loss as to how to implement a few things, like Ambient Occlusion for example. After a few days it started to make sense and I'm just about getting my head around it. With Vray, I just jumped in and everything worked so I was a little disappointed to the amount of effort I had to put in to make something look good. I guess I'm very accustomed to the channel system.

some things take a little longer to set up (displacement for e.g.) and seem quite convoluted in comparison to C4d native shader system. Though, once you know the process it's no big deal.

In redShift, I wouldn't say the nodal workflow is faster or better. It seems to be just another way of working because, as far as I know, you cannot edit multiple materials in one editor. So if you have many materials using the same noise texture, you'll have to connect a node to each material rather than one node for all the materials. I can't see how this is different to the channel system in C4d native.

Once I got Subsurface scattering to work, the results were a dream and renders pretty quickly. In comparison, I feel SSS in native C4d is complicated to set up and the results are not so good looking. Vray SSS is easier than RedShift but RedShift looks better, you have more control and renders faster.

Redshift Physical camera is intuitive and setting up DOF, motion blur and lens effects is easier than native C4D and renders quickly, no fuss!

The render speed is the real difference here. I do like the look Vray renders give but RedShift renders so much faster! I'm very tempted to stick with RedShift, improve my ability with the nodal system and get great looking renders.....That is, of course, until ProRender comes along...maybe!

@nerv I realise now you probably made the Opalescence shader from scratch, while I was thinking it was an 'out of the box' preset. Is there any chance you could hint as to how you connected this shader up? I've tried a similar thing in Vray but to no avail!

Well, I've finally had a few days to mess around with the RedShift engine, and while it isn't the 'wonder renderer' I was dreaming of (at least not yet), it is still very good...I know I need to use it more than 3-4 days to get more out of it, Nerv's renders are evidence of this.

The nodal system stumped me at first. There's bit of a learning curve and I was at a loss as to how to implement a few things, like Ambient Occlusion for example. After a few days it started to make sense and I'm just about getting my head around it. With Vray, I just jumped in and everything worked so I was a little disappointed to the amount of effort I had to put in to make something look good. I guess I'm very accustomed to the channel system.

some things take a little longer to set up (displacement for e.g.) and seem quite convoluted in comparison to C4d native shader system. Though, once you know the process it's no big deal.

In redShift, I wouldn't say the nodal workflow is faster or better. It seems to be just another way of working because, as far as I know, you cannot edit multiple materials in one editor. So if you have many materials using the same noise texture, you'll have to connect a node to each material rather than one node for all the materials. I can't see how this is different to the channel system in C4d native.

Once I got Subsurface scattering to work, the results were a dream and renders pretty quickly. In comparison, I feel SSS in native C4d is complicated to set up and the results are not so good looking. Vray SSS is easier than RedShift but RedShift looks better, you have more control and renders faster.

Redshift Physical camera is intuitive and setting up DOF, motion blur and lens effects is easier than native C4D and renders quickly, no fuss!

The render speed is the real difference here. I do like the look Vray renders give but RedShift renders so much faster! I'm very tempted to stick with RedShift, improve my ability with the nodal system and get great looking renders.....That is, of course, until ProRender comes along...maybe!

@nerv I realise now you probably made the Opalescence shader from scratch, while I was thinking it was an 'out of the box' preset. Is there any chance you could hint as to how you connected this shader up? I've tried a similar thing in Vray but to no avail!

Here's a few renders from my 1st round with RedShift

Great job. I especially like the first one.

The opalescent shader is indeed one I made from scratch. It's a combination of fresnel effects, SSS, and layering of reflections (Redshift has both, base reflections and a reflective coat layer, which helps in this). I can make a proper tutorial later.

As for your review, I can't disagree on the immediacy of channel-based shaders. I did miss that ease when I first transitioned. However, the benefit of node-based shaders is that one node can procedurally UPDATE multiple things at the same time. Takes a little longer to get your initial structure going, but its benefit is felt when you're doing lookdev, tweaking textures that may affect multiple parameters, etc.

For example, that opalescent shader takes advantage of that. Tweaking a noise texture and seeing the results change on all affected parameters - as opposed to having to tweak and/or copy-paste from channel to channel - made the process a lot less tedious.

As with anything, it just takes time to get used to. It feels very natural to me now.